


Baby

by jade_earrings



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of F/M, POV Ash Lynx, Pining Ash Lynx, Post-Angel Eyes, Pre-Canon, Voyeurism, mentions of threesomes, they also fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jade_earrings/pseuds/jade_earrings
Summary: Ash’s love letter to Shorter.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Shorter Wong
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is... a mess, lol. Thanks for reading!
> 
> I was listening to [this song](https://youtu.be/LIxx2NZUUco) on repeat

When Shorter says it, Ash melts underneath him. 

It's always right before one of them is about to come. 

_‘Baby…’_

It sounds like how Shorter would say it to a girl. At least, that's how Ash imagines it. 

The first time they did it, Ash had stayed over. He didn’t say what he was avoiding, and Shorter didn’t ask.

They drank just enough for Ash to be tipsy (which wasn’t very much) and they’re lying in Shorter’s bed, watching a movie (Ash doesn’t remember which one, he couldn’t pay attention with Shorter that close to him), and Shorter is behind him and Ash can feel the heat from his hips where they’re almost touching his own. He feels like if he moves his ass back an inch, a centimeter, it would be pressed against the front of Shorter’s jeans. Thinking about it makes him dizzy. 

He knows exactly where Shorter’s hand is. Where his arm is. He knows the exact placement and position of all of his limbs, even though he’s behind him, even though he can’t see him. 

Finally, Ash feels himself start to move. He watches himself reach behind him and take Shorter’s hand in his own, watches his fingers interlace with Shorter’s as he pulls his arm around him. He feels Shorter’s hips lean into him, solid and warm, and behind him, he hears Shorter make a low sound that’s almost a groan, right next to his ear. 

He turns to Shorter and their lips come together like it’s nothing. 

If Shorter is surprised, he doesn’t show it. His mouth moves against Ash’s in a languid kiss that tastes like whiskey and something else. Like him. 

Ash’s body is a live wire. He responds instantly to Shorter’s every movement, every breath. 

Shorter pulls Ash on top of him, his hands at Ash’s waist, and then his hips, one hand moving to the small of his back, slipping down easily beneath the waistband of his jeans that are too big, even with a belt. 

He makes Ash feel tiny. His shoulders, his chest as he’s pressed against him. His hands, as they move over him, covering expanses of his skin. Ash keens as his hand closes around his ass, and he starts moving his hips, rubbing against him through their jeans. 

Shorter’s bed squeaks. 

It’s really loud. And they weren’t even fucking, just making out and dry-humping. But Ash doesn’t care. 

If Nadia hears it, she probably thinks Shorter is fucking a girl. Ash isn’t sure how he feels about this. At the very least, he’s conflicted. 

He’s seen the kinds of girls Shorter likes. Or at least, the ones that he’s pretty sure Shorter likes. Sometimes they’re small, tiny even, with short hair, pixie haircuts and blunt nails. Other times they have long, thick hair, sharp eyeliner, jasmine perfume. Ash knows the things they all have in common: long legs, white teeth, flat chests. Ash thinks, _maybe there’s hope for me after all._

But he knows that’s not how that works. 

The first time he's in Shorter's room, something flutters in his stomach. 

“You can come up,” Shorter tells him. “I just gotta grab something.”

Shorter’s footsteps are heavy against the stairs. There is a hole in his jeans, in the top left corner of the right back pocket. Ash thinks he can see the tiniest flash of Shorter’s boxers. He thinks they’re orange. 

Shorter pushes the door open. When Ash steps into his room, he feels time stop. 

He blinks as his eyes move over each wall. There’s a side table, a bookshelf, a clothes hamper, and Shorter’s bed. He can hear the noises of the pipes behind the wall, echoes of water moving through valves. The lights are low. 

Ash swallows. He’s immediately struck by what this feels like. It’s familiar, yet completely different in a way he’s never experienced before in his life. 

The anticipation of bodies crashing into each other. 

The air is electric. 

It feels like sex. 

He turns toward Shorter. 

“All right, we can go.” He hears Shorter’s voice above him. He can feel his breath. He’s standing so close, they’re almost touching. 

_Say something. Do something._

The seconds tick by. It feels like forever. 

“You ready?” Shorter asks him. 

Ash watches it play out, watches what he could do right now if he wasn’t frozen. He sees himself surge forward and wrap his hand around the back of Shorter’s neck so that he can pull him down toward his face, their lips connecting. He sees his other hand move from Shorter’s stomach up to his chest as their tongues touch.

He sees Shorter wrap an arm around him and back him up toward the bed before tipping him onto his back onto the mattress. He sees Shorter on top of him, hard as a rock, the friction from his jeans making him lightheaded. 

Ash blinks. 

“Yeah,” he hears himself say. 

“You okay?” Shorter raises an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah,” Ash says again. 

Does he love him? Or Is he just flinging himself at the first person who hasn’t tried to fuck him? Probably. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have it bad. 

After Shorter left juvie, Ash had a lot of time alone to think about him.

Something had happened, something had clicked in his head while they were in there together, whether Ash wanted to admit it or confront it or not. 

It was like Shorter could sense it, the moment he got out. The moment he set foot outside the gate, the moment he stepped into the sun. When Ash had showed up at the restaurant a couple of days later, Shorter knew he was coming. At the time, Ash thought he may have been imagining it, but he couldn't deny it. That feeling. Like he had been waiting for him. 

They’re in the alley, near the back door of Chang Dai. Shorter is wearing just a tank top, the overshirt he was wearing in the kitchen now tied around his waist. The fine hairs on his biceps shine in the ray of sunset peeking through the cracks between buildings.

“How’d you know I was getting out today?” Ash asks him. _How did you know I was going to show up?_

Shorter just shrugs. “I hear things.”

Ash huffs. Shorter knows everything. 

He slips a pack of cigarettes out of the front pocket of his jeans, flips the top open and fishes one out, gripping the filter with his teeth. He holds it between his lips as he digs in his other pocket, and then he hears a click. He blinks. Shorter is already holding a lighter in front of his face. Ash leans into the flame, and then sucks in deeply, 

Shorter watches him, and Ash sees something flicker in his eyes as he reaches out and takes the cigarette from Ash’s lips and brings it to his own. Shorter French-inahles, drawing the smoke upward into his nose before letting it drift out of his mouth. He hands the cigarette back with a grin. 

Ash is in love.

He’s not sure if he wants to fuck Shorter or if he wants to be him. He’s considered the possibility that maybe Shorter is the type of guy that, deep down, he wants to be.

But he also wants to fuck him. 

_If I were a girl, I'd be the love of his life,_ Ash thinks.

Immediately, as if it’s a direct answer to this thought, he remembers what Shorter said to him that day in juvie, when they were sitting outside on that bench, just before Shorter had gotten out. 

_‘If you were a girl, you wouldn’t even give somebody like me the time of day.’_

_No,_ Ash remembers thinking. _If I were a girl,_ he thinks, _I’d be a different person. And you like me the way I am now._

Some nights, when Ash is alone and he gets so turned on he can’t see, his hands will start to slide over his skin, and he’ll trail his fingertips up under his shirt, over his stomach, and then he’ll slide his jeans down and trace over his hip bones, over the soft hairs on his thighs. Those nights, he tries to wait as long as possible before he takes his underwear off, because he knows he’ll lose it the second his fingertips touch his skin. 

Ash wonders if a girl has ever sat on Shorter’s face, has ever come in his mouth. 

He pictures how a girl would look riding his cock, straddled over his hips, her hands splayed over his bare chest, her nails leaving tiny crescent shapes in his skin. He pictures her head falling back as she moans, and how Shorter sounds when he comes. 

Sometimes, he pictures them both fucking the same girl at once. He wouldn’t care which way they did it, because he knows he’d just be watching Shorter the whole time. Which is why he doesn’t make it too far into these fantasies before his head drops back and he’s spilling all over his stomach.

One of the first times he’s in one of Shorter’s clubs, he sees Shorter and a girl together.

They’re pressed against the wall in a dark back hallway, the one that leads to the bathrooms. Her leg is wrapped up around his hip, one hand at the back of his neck, her nails pressed against his scalp. 

Ash freezes and flattens back against the wall, trying to hide in a shadow, almost like he’s a prey animal. His heart is thudding so hard that he can hear it in his skull, over the bass that’s vibrating through the floor. He presses his palms flat against the wall as he tries to stay perfectly still. 

He can hear them murmuring to each other, and then they’re kissing deeply, his hand coming down and slipping under her skirt, gripping her ass.

_Fuck._

Ash’s breath huffs, and he keeps his hands pressed against the wall, even as he strains against the front of his jeans. And then...

He blinks. It’s not Shorter. It’s someone else. Some random guy and some random girl.

Ash sags against the wall and almost laughs.

He doesn’t know what it says, the fact that that’s what his brain wanted him to see. Probably nothing good. 

The second time, Ash had spent the night hustling pool, and he’d had just had one drink, or maybe two, just enough to make him ballsy but not sloppy, and he decides he’s going to put himself directly in Shorter’s way, just to see what happens. 

When he shows up at the club, Shorter is sitting, relaxed, talking to a girl. He has a drink in his hand, but Ash can’t tell what’s in it. 

When he sees Ash, he looks caught off-guard. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. 

“Just business,” Ash tells him. 

Shorter’s eyebrows raise. After a beat, he tips his drink back and swallows the rest of it, then gets up and steers Ash toward the door. 

“You drunk?” he asks Ash once they’re outside. 

“Nah,” Ash answers. The air is cool on his face. “A little.” 

“A little.” Shorter makes a noise that sounds like _hmph_ as his eyes move over him. “Why’re you here, huh?” 

Ash stares back. Shorter is looking at him like he did back when they were still in juvie. Outwardly, his body language is the same, but Ash can tell that underneath that exterior, Shorter is a little unnerved. And he can tell that some part of Shorter likes that, the fact that Ash can do that to him. 

_Or maybe I’m delusional. Projecting._

Ash blinks. Shorter is still gazing down at him, and Ash can’t read his mind, not fully, anyway, so...

_Fuck it._

Ash steps into his space. Leans in.

Shorter blinks. 

He lets Ash kiss him. 

When they break away, Shorter lets out a low sigh. 

“We can’t do this here,” he says finally. 

Ash’s heart flutters. 

Later, Shorter grunts and shifts under him on the bed while Ash’s fingers move at his belt, opening his jeans and then closing his hand around his cock, which is still trapped against the fabric of his boxers. And he’s _huge._

“Fuck,” Ash breathes as he pulls him out. He can wrap his whole hand around him, but just barely. He gives it a slow, experimental stroke. 

Shorter exhales, his head falling back a little as Ash strokes him again. “Damn...” He reaches up, his fingers closing around Ash's as he starts moving his hand so that Ash matches his pace and grip. 

If Ash were sober, he’d be caught off-guard. He knows how to give a hand job. And then it hits him. Just because he knows how to give a hand job doesn’t mean he knows how to give Shorter one. This almost knocks him down a peg. 

He lets Shorter guide his hand, and he memorizes how to stroke him, which places to hit, exactly where to slide his thumb against the underside.

As he strokes him, Ash watches Shorter’s brain start to power down, watches his eyes glaze over as all of his rational functions start to slip away. Ash leans up and kisses him roughly just as his muscles start to tense. 

“Fuck, Ash…”

Shorter lets out a low groan as he comes against his stomach, his lower lip closed in Ash’s teeth. Ash smiles as he pulls away. He decides that this is the most accomplished he’s felt in a while. 

“Come here…” 

When Shorter reaches for him, Ash lets out a soft, involuntary noise. It’s almost embarrassing, how immediately he leans into his touch. Ash settles on his side against him, sighing as Shorter pulls him out of his jeans. 

Shorter wraps his hand completely around Ash’s cock and fists him until he’s coming over his fingers as he moans loudly. Through his half-closed eyelids, Ash sees something in Shorter's face, sees something flip a switch in his brain, like he’s just cracked a code. 

Ash knows that sometimes guys just fuck their friends. He knows that better than anyone. Sometimes people just...fuck each other. And there’s no real reason or logic behind it. This time, though, he really wants it to mean something. 

The third time, they'd been at a house party, in an apartment crammed with way too many people, and Ash isn’t sure how Shorter got an invite, or maybe he crashed it. But it doesn’t matter, because he brought Ash along. 

“You wanna do something tonight?” Shorter asks him. 

“Like what?” 

Shorter shrugs. “Party?” He sounds nonchalant, but there’s a glint in his eye that Ash recognizes. 

“What kind?” Ash laughs. “Good one or shitty one?” 

Shorter shrugs again, smiling easily. “Wanna find out?”

That means wherever the party is, it’s not in Chinatown. Shorter claims there aren’t any bad parties in Chinatown, and Ash knows that even if there were, Shorter wouldn’t make him go to them. 

“Sure. What time d’you wanna meet at the station?” Ash asks him.

“We’re not taking the subway,” Shorter says immediately. 

Ash blinks. “Then are we walking?”

“Nah, not walking.” Shorter raises an eyebrow at him. “Come by here at 11. We’ll take the bike.” 

Ash hasn’t ridden on the bike yet. 

“You sure?” he asks Shorter.

“Yeah.” Shorter waves his hand as if it’s the biggest non-issue in the world. 

When Ash shows up at the back door, Shorter is already outside. He’s bent down, checking the bike. 

“You ready?” he asks Ash as he straightens up once more. He grips the handlebars as he swings his leg over the seat, now balancing on the balls of his feet. 

“Yeah.” Ash straddles the bike and settles against Shorter’s back, wrapping his arms around his waist. 

“Hang on,” Shorter tells him, reaching back to pat Ash’s head before he starts the bike and takes off down the alley. Ash grips him harder as the bike whips out onto the street. 

Shorter parks the bike a block away, and Ash can see his breath against the too-dark street as they make their way through the unfamiliar neighborhood with too few streetlamps.

It struck Ash then that Shorter always seemed to let him stick close to his side, _really_ close, like, almost touching him. And Shorter didn’t seem to mind. 

Ash can hear the low murmur of voices as they walk up the steps to the apartment.

“Whose place is this?” Ash asks him.

“I just gotta make an appearance,” Shorter says.

Ash doesn’t have time to process the fact that Shorter hadn’t answered his question, because they are already stepping into the warm, humid air inside the apartment, and they don’t make it very far before Shorter is greeted by a chorus of voices. He hugs a couple of people Ash doesn’t know, a guy, whom Shorter claps on the back just the right number of times, and a girl, whom Shorter hugs with just his shoulders, and Ash can see that he’s careful not to press his body against her. 

Ash gets roped into playing beer pong, and he ends up being phenomenal at it, to the point that all of these total strangers want him to be on his team. So he takes turns, rotating out and leaving one winning team for the next as he wipes his sticky, beer-covered fingers against his jeans in between rounds. 

As he’s about to make the last winning shot, he glances over and sees Shorter across the room, a beer in his hand, watching him with a knowing smile on his face. 

The more tipsy Ash gets, the more his cheeks flush, and he can’t remember what drink he’s on, and now he’s talking to a girl he doesn’t know, and he can tell she isn’t as drunk as he is but he doesn’t care. She’s cute, and he feels steady pulses of euphoria hitting his brain. She touches him on the arm, and then suddenly, Shorter is at his side again. “So that’s where you went,” he says, putting an arm around him.

Shorter steers him away, further down the hall, where the voices and bodies have started to thin out. 

Ash had smoked weed before, but not in a while. The first time he did it, it had made him hallucinate. It wasn’t something he was super psyched to experience again. 

Now, he’s with Shorter in one of the bedrooms, with the light on and the door shut, the muffled sounds of drunk voices and people bumping into the walls. Ash can hear the faint bass from the stereo in the other room.

They’re sitting on the bed. The comforter is faded, with a striped pattern that looks like it’s from the early 90s, and it reminds Ash of the one on Shorter’s bed. Shorter pulls a joint out from the pocket of his vest and puts it between his lips as Ash marvels at the tiny, perfectly twisted end. Shorter is already lighting it, and then takes a long pull from it before handing it to Ash. Ash stares at it for a beat, and then takes it between his index finger and thumb and closes his lips around it. 

It punches him in the lungs, and he lets out a loud cough almost instantly. Shorter laughs.

“That always happens,” he reassures him, taking the joint from Ash's fingers and bringing it to his lips once more. “Don’t worry.” 

Ash lets out another small, shallow hack. “I’ve only done it in a bong,” he tells Shorter, as if this is some kind of explanation. 

Shorter looks like he thinks this is really funny.

“It’s the same stuff,” he replies, offering the joint to Ash again. Ash takes it and inhales slower this time. He’s able to keep most of the smoke in his chest for a few seconds. 

“There you go.” Shorter’s voice is low and smooth. 

Ash exhales slowly. “Do you actually know anybody here?” he asks Shorter.

“Nah.” Shorter laughs. “I mean, maybe.” He waves his hand. “Probably met a couple people, at some point.” He gives Ash a lopsided smile. 

This strikes Ash as hilarious, and he lets out a full, genuine laugh, like he did that first time when Shorter was getting out of juvie, when he had stolen Shorter’s angel card. Shorter’s gaze lingers on him.

“You’re a good sport,” he tells Ash as he passes the joint to him again. 

On the way back, Ash presses his cheek against Shorter’s back, the wind whipping in his hair. It’s so late, or early, that the only sounds he can hear are the ones from the bike and a few other cars, the air still and damp in his nose and in his lungs. Everything around him is moving by too quickly, but he doesn't care because in this moment he's anchored here, with Shorter, and he wants to stay here forever. 

They make it through the back door without much noise, and then Ash giggles on the way up the stairs.

“We’re not waking my sister up,” Shorter warns him, but Ash can hear him smiling, the ease in his voice. 

Ash has had just enough to drink to balance out the weed, and now he’s hoping that tonight can be like the other nights, the nights that started at once and then twice and then…

Once the door is shut behind them, he doesn’t hesitate. He comes at Shorter with his lips and arms and face, and Shorter catches him as he kisses him hard, his arms sliding up around Shorter’s neck.

He feels like if he stops, even for a second, this might all dissolve around him, and he will have lost his chance. And he’s not going to let that happen. 

He pushes Shorter down onto his back on the bed, then shoves his shirt up and trails his lips over his sternum, brushing his nipples, and then down his stomach as he starts working the button of his jeans open. He can already feel how hard he is against his hand. 

He pulls him out and pumps him once, watching Shorter’s face. Slowly, he runs his tongue over the cleft at the underside of the head, then lowers his mouth halfway down his cock until he almost gags. He feels Shorter’s hand close in his hair.

“Goddamn, baby…” Shorter breathes. Ash inhales sharply, pressing his tongue against the underside of his cock as he draws his mouth up slowly. 

_Baby..._

Ash lets out a soft moan around him, and this makes Shorter crazy. He can tell, because his cock pulses against his tongue, a fresh drop of precum slicking against the roof of his mouth. He wraps his fingers around the base of Shorter’s cock as he works the top half with his mouth and throat. 

Shorter’s hand moves to the side of his face, cupping slightly around his ear, the pad of his thumb against his earlobe. Ash moves faster now, establishing a rhythm that he can keep up, and it doesn’t take Shorter long to come. He shoots down Ash’s throat so hard, and there’s so much, it makes Ash cough. 

“Damn…” Shorter is breathing hard, his hand still against Ash’s face. He laughs a little. “You give head better than any girl I’ve ever fucked.” 

Ash wonders if there haven’t actually been that many girls. 

In the morning, he steps out of Shorter's room and he stumbles, hungover, right into Nadia.

He can tell by the look on her face that she knows exactly what he had been doing in her brother's room all night. He thinks he sees the slightest smile flit across her face as she brushes past him, and then he's just standing there, wondering what just happened. 

After that, whenever he comes by the restaurant, there's a hint of warmth in her eyes when she sees him, one that he thinks is reserved only for him. 

Sometimes, Ash wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he hears the roar of Shorter’s motorcycle. It just ends up being a car with a loud muffler, but for a split second, he’s taken back to that place where he’s pressed fully into Shorter’s back, his cheek resting against the fabric of his vest as they speed past the city lights.

When Ash thinks about everything that has happened to him, he doesn't always remember every detail, but he always remembers how it felt. 

The fourth time, they’re not drunk, and they’re making out, and they’d barely made it in the door to his room before Shorter has Ash against the wall, his hand behind his head so that it doesn’t hit the wood. Ash hitches his legs around Shorter’s waist, and he swears he hears him growl, a guttural sound that bursts from deep in his chest as his hands close over Ash’s ass.

Shorter practically throws him onto the bed. Ash lands with a soft thump against the pillow, and Shorter is on top of him, in between his legs, his hips against Ash’s as their lips meet again. 

This time, it’s not like a rubber band, with Ash pulling away until he snaps back. The intensity is equal; they’re grinding their mouths together with the same amount of force. Ash is already undoing Shorter’s belt, his fingers working at the button and zipper of his jeans.

Shorter breaks away first, breathless. He sits up and pulls his shirt over his head, and then shoves his jeans down, kicking them off the side of the bed. 

“Here.” He reaches out and hooks a finger into a belt loop on the side of Ash’s jeans. “Take these off.” 

Ash’s body is wound so tight, he can barely breathe. 

Shakily, Ash reaches down to pull off his jeans and drops them on the floor next to the bed. He leaves his underwear on. He doesn’t want to assume.

“Those too,” Shorter tells him, his voice husky as he tugs at Ash’s briefs. Ash finally makes eye contact. He can see that Shorter isn't just humoring him. That he _wants_ him. At least, Ash thinks he does. 

Slowly, he slides off his briefs and drops them, adding them to the pile on the floor. 

“You sure?" Shorter asks him.

Ash nods, then reaches down next to the bed, into the pocket of his jeans. He shoves a sachet of lube into Shorter's palm, the kind they hand out with the condoms at the free clinic when you get a rapid-results HIV test. 

Ash can see Shorter hesitating, and it makes him hold his breath. 

Shorter leans over and pulls a condom out of the bedside table, and Ash sees the gold glint of a Magnum wrapper in his hand. 

Shorter is the only person he’s ever seen use a Magnum who actually needs one. 

Ash laughs. 

“What,” Shorter murmurs. 

“Nothing.” 

“Mm.” Shorter leans down to kiss him hard, his teeth closing around his lower lip. As he pulls away, Ash can hear him tear open the packet of lube, spreading it over his fingertips.

Shorter goes slow. 

He eases his lubed fingers inside Ash until he’s open-mouthed and practically drooling, his eyes rolling back in his head as Shorter spreads him apart. It doesn’t hurt. 

“You sure?” Shorter asks him again, as he’s pushed up in Ash to his second knuckle. 

“Yeah.” Ash looks him dead in the eye. “I want it.” 

Shorter nods, and his fingers slip out of him so gently that Ash barely feels it. 

"How do you wanna be?" he asks him.

Ash stares, blinks. He doesn’t quite understand the question. Well, he does, but he’s not used to people asking. 

“Just wanna see you,” Ash murmurs. Shorter nods like he understands completely. 

He lays Ash down on the bed, his hand behind his head, cradling it as he shifts him, handling him like he’s made of glass. As he starts to push into him, he watches Ash’s face the entire time. 

This is how he knows Shorter would do anything he wants. Ash almost feels guilty.

Ash is his exception. 

Sometimes, when they’re like this, when Shorter is blissed out of his mind, Ash thinks he hears him almost say it. It's a hitch in his throat. Something he murmurs when his brain is only half-online. 

"Fuck...I love...this,” is what Ash hears this time, and he wants to say it back, wants to say it to Shorter for real. 

Ash knows he can't fuck this up, though. Not when this is his best friend. His soul mate. He can't fuck it up over sex. He refuses to.   
  


This time (he’s stopped counting), Shorter has Ash on his back, their fingers interlaced as he holds his hands over his head. Ash turns his face to the side, bites his lip, arching against the pillow, his eyes sliding shut. 

He has to remind himself that this isn't a performance, and he's not performing, he doesn't need to. Not here. Not in the sanctuary that is Shorter's bedroom above Chang Dai, one of the few places left where Ash can go and only be touched in ways that he wants to. 

Occasionally Ash wants to ask Shorter if he’s ever fucked any other guy besides him. He doesn’t ask, not only because it’s not his business, but also because part of him is afraid to know the answer. He wants to keep being Shorter’s exception. His only one. Even if there had been someone else before him, that’d be okay. He just wants to be the last. He wants to be the only guy Shorter has ever fucked, but, more than that, he wants to be the last guy Shorter fucks for as long as they both live. And now...

“Hey…”

Ash blinks. Shorter is gazing down at him, searching his face. Ash’s eyes trace over the curve of Shorter’s upper lip as he stares back.

Every time he feels like he's going under, Shorter brings him back again. 

He can tell that Shorter wants to ask him where he goes, when his mind retreats like that. When he sinks.

He wants to ask Shorter what he sees when he looks at him. 

Somewhere, there's a universe in which they're together, with no hang-ups, nothing held back, nothing not taken. 

For now, there's just this. Ash loves him. And he thinks Shorter loves him back. And that’s enough. 

“You okay?”

Shorter’s hand cups his face, his thumb resting gently on his cheek, and Ash is staring again. He doesn’t get to see Shorter’s eyes up close very often, not like this. They’re a much lighter brown than he remembers.

“Yeah,” Ash answers. 

Shorter gives him the softest look he’s ever seen, and then leans down to kiss him, long and deep as he starts moving inside him again, grinding against his prostate at just the right angle, and Ash is arched back and moaning, not caring what he looks like because it just feels _so fucking_...

“Yeah…Right there, huh?”

Shorter laughs a little, his voice low.

“That’s it _baby,_ come on...” 

Shorter’s lips press against the front of his throat, and Ash comes. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is where I retweet other people's art and occasionally overshare: [twitter](https://twitter.com/jade_earrings)


End file.
